


Staring at the Same Stars

by Missy



Category: Peter Pan & Related Fandoms, Peter Pan - J. M. Barrie
Genre: Adulthood, Developing Friendship, Female Friendship, Friendship, Gen, Growing Up, Introspection, Making Friends, tiredness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-16
Updated: 2018-08-16
Packaged: 2019-06-28 12:17:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,303
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15707070
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Missy/pseuds/Missy
Summary: After Peter, Wendy and the Lost Boys save Tiger Lily from Captain Hook, Wendy and Tiger Lily get to know one another.  It's much easier than Wendy anticipated, and much stranger than Tiger Lily ever fathomed.





	Staring at the Same Stars

**Author's Note:**

  * For [maplemood](https://archiveofourown.org/users/maplemood/gifts).



Tiger Lily sat down beside Wendy with a soft huff, and Wendy was so tired that the motion barely stirred her. She watched the Lost Boys as they fought wildly in the light of the camp fire over a peppermint candy drop Wendy had found in the pocket of her nightgown. Wendy felt exhausted at the prospect of flying back to Peter’s treehouse; she felt as if she could sleep forever after the fight to rescue Tiger Lily, something they very nearly hadn’t managed to do.

Then Tiger Lily spoke. “Come on, Wendy Bird. Join in the fun!”

Wendy wished she could understand the princess’ endless vigor and pep. All of that exhaustion made her wonder if adulthood trying to settle into her bones, even in Neverland, and had to shudder. No, she decided – she needed to be more like Tiger Lily. Tiger Lily who seemed so happy and carefree, with her wide smile and her sharp laugh, during the celebration that Wendy couldn’t help but envy her openly. 

She watched Tiger Lily’s fond smile as the boys wrestle over the tiny peppermint. “How can you stand them?” she wondered. Comparing their antics to her experience with her own brothers was an impossible feat; Michael and John were quietly learning from Tiger Lily’s father how to simulate the sound of a cougar growling to better frighten one's enemies, and the difference in manners between the two groups of boys were obvious and appalling to Wendy.

“I have a father. And there are many men in my village who are like them but a lot older,” Tiger Lily said with a laugh. “And they aren’t nearly as bad as Hook and his pirates, don’t you think so?”

Wendy nodded. She did have to admit that much was true. She just wanted to keep her brain and her body intact at this point; Neverland was nothing like what she’d anticipated and everything she'd hoped for. Much more dangerous. Thrilling, but dangerous. And very, very tiring. 

“So why don’t you come dance with me then?” Tiger Lily asked. “We should be as happy as they are.”

Wendy did think so, but she also didn’t think that it was proper to give herself up and start running around the fire like a wild boy. In spite of herself she was still a proper daughter, still wanted to maintain some sort of motherly poise when around this lot of boys. Said boys had, while she wasn’t looking, begun to roast ears of corn over the fire and laughing as the corn popped into fat kernels. “How often do the Lost Boys visit you?” she asked.

“Oh, once every few days,” Tiger Lily shrugged. “But it’s not usually as exciting as it was tonight.”

Wendy wrinkled her nose. Even for her adventurous taste, that seemed a bit too much of an effort to put in.

“But if you’d rather not dance, why don’t we go to my tent?” It was clear that Tiger Lily rarely had female visitors at the camp; she hadn’t been solicitous in the least at first, but now she was almost eager to have Wendy’s company. Tiger Lily had openly enjoyed the Lost Boys’ company throughout the party, but suddenly she was sitting there, staring at her as if she’d been introduced to a new vegetable, or an alien species. 

Part of Wendy wondered if she was planning on selling her to Tinkerbelle and shrinking Wendy wholesale until she was invisible. The level of jealousy involved in her existence in this place was another unexpected feature.

“Well, yes, I suppose that would be lovely,” Wendy said, and winced as her mother’s cultured tones came from her lips.

 

 

****

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The purple hills and green rolling grasses that surrounded the encampment seemed almost lyrically enchanted to Wendy. “How do you feel about living in Never Land?” Wendy said. She didn’t say ‘forever’. She didn’t mention the notion that Tiger Lily might have a choice of her own, to live here forever or to grow up somewhere else. She didn’t know if Tiger Lily even wanted to have such a choice placed in her hands – if she could leave whenever she wanted to. If she was as bound as the boys to the world that cradled and fed her.

Tiger Lily shrugged and lifted the corner flap of her tipi. “Someday I’ll take over for my father.” Tiger Lily looked sad at this prospect, but quickly added, “He’s been preparing me for it since I was small.” She gestured for Wendy to crawl inside and she did so, then sat carefully against the buffalo skin bottom. Wendy had an immediate worrisome thought, that people could die in Neverland just as they died in London, but pushed it aside.

Tiger Lily’s quarters were lovely; darkened slightly by the lack of firelight, for sure, but filled with beautiful details, like an ivory carving of a stag and a small pile of maps. She had been dreaming, clearly, just as Wendy had been, of some sort of far-away escape from responsibility and duty. She could tell that Tiger Lily felt secure here from the way things were haphazardly thrown about.

“Home is indeed a sweet home when you have quarters of your own.” Wendy thought back to the nursery, to the fact that she and Michael and John had been sharing the environs of it for so long that she forgot what it felt like to be on her own. No wonder she’d rebelled. No wonder she’d been so afraid to finally graduate into adulthood, sensibility, running a stately house, afternoon tea and charity meetings.

“What will you have to do?” wondered Wendy.

“Keep our people safe from Hook,” she said. “Make sure that we have enough to eat, and stay warm in the winter. Keep them alive, and keep the traditions going.”

“There’s winter in Neverland?” Wendy couldn’t fathom it.

“There's every season in Neverland. And every season is…well, it’s not like anything you’ve ever experienced, probably. But beautiful, and the only thing I’ve ever known.”

Wendy considered that. Pan had indeed given her the opportunity to stay and live here. She’d been given many chances to become the sort of girl who would be as brave as Tiger Lily. Wendy thought she was aquitting herself well. Or she would be, if she wasn’t so terribly tired. 

“I think I’ll stay and see them all,” Wendy said cheerfully. “Winters made of peppermint ice cream, and flowers bigger than my hands in the summer, and falls that taste of maple and toasted nuts…” She sighed and rolled onto her back. Through the small hole developed at the center point of the tipi, where she could see stars twinkling beyond her grasp, the moon was big and bright. “It’s an awfully hard business, isn’t it? Growing up?”

Tiger Lily hummed thoughtfully. “I…wish that I might. Someday.”

There was Wendy’s answer. What wouldn’t she give to change roles with this girl? Wendy again bit back her jealousy – it had no place in the equation. “You could always ask Peter to take you to London.”

“It wouldn’t be as easy for me,” she said. And Wendy understood – because of so many reasons. Her obligations. Her lack of a mother to find (was Tiger Lily's mother American, desperately searching still for the daughter she lost when she put down her cradle board?). Even the beautiful color of her skin would be an object of scorn to some.

“Think about it for awhile,” Wendy sighed. “I won’t be going anywhere,” she said, falling to sleep. She heard Tiger Lily’s breathing beside her slow to a soft snore. It was funny what could make two girls old pals. A nap under the stars, an uncertain future, and the claws of womanhood approaching, stabbing at them both.


End file.
